331: Chapter 331 Old Dragon Emperor, Your Daughter is in My Hands

"Your Majesty, Old Dragon Emperor, I do not have the ancient jade."

Hearing Zhu Kun's words, Gu Han gave a faint smile.

"But I have brought something that will satisfy you even more than the ancient jade."

"Hmm!?"

Gu Han's sentence set off a storm in Zhu Kun's mind.

The fact that this youth didn't have the ancient jade made him instinctively want to strike and obliterate him.

That bastard Tuoshe Ancient Emperor had set up measures in advance to imprison him here as a gatekeeper. If he wanted to suffer less pain and torture, he had to kill anyone who intruded into the Ancient Tomb.

However, Gu Han had pointed out his identity, clearly knowing who he was and perhaps even coming specifically for him.

Having been imprisoned here for thousands of years, he wasn't entirely uninterested in the situation of the outside world.

What interested him most was Gu Han saying he had something more important than the ancient jade.

Does such a thing still exist on this Fighting Qi Continent?

The ancient jade represented the ability to open the gates of the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor's Cave Abode.

It represented the end of his fate as a gatekeeping dragon and the chance to enter the Ancient Tomb to obtain the Opportunity to become an Emperor.

On the Fighting Qi Continent, it was impossible for anything to carry more weight for him than the ancient jade.

No, wait, there was something—his child who had not yet been born back then.

Could it be...

"You... could it be..." Zhu Kun's massive throat moved. "You have news of my child?"

Gu Han smiled and nodded, raising his hand to open the spatial portal of the Black Tortoise Mystic Realm. "Zi Yan, come out."

"Gu Han, do you even know how to speak!" Before Zi Yan even emerged, her slightly willful voice drifted out first. "To think you'd say I'm some 'thing' in your hands."

Gu Han's lips twitched slightly. He reached into the Void Realm, stroked Zi Yan's head, and brought her out. "So, you're not a thing?"

"Of course I'm not a thing!" Zi Yan crossed her arms, tossing her twin tails and turning her face away, signaling she didn't want to talk to Gu Han.

"Fine, you're not a thing."

"Hey! You're insulting me in a roundabout way again!" Zi Yan finally reacted, stomping on the void in a huff. "I am Zi Yan, I am a Void Ancient Dragon, of course I'm not a 'thing'—but I am a person—argh!"

Hahaha.

Gu Han let out a light chuckle.

This little Zi Yan—her strength had been nurtured by him to the Peak of the Dou Zong class, and her body now looked like a seventeen or eighteen-year-old high school student.

Yet her personality was still like a child's, which was quite amusing.

"Child... my child... it really is my child!!!"

While Gu Han was laughing happily and Zi Yan was fuming with embarrassment...

In Zhu Kun's massive eyes below, a layer of mist emerged and quickly transformed into giant tears.

Gu Han thought: Does this count as Zhu Kun's dark history?

He had invented the Recording Stone a while ago. It couldn't be mass-produced yet; should he waste one here?

Wait, how could getting leverage over a Late Stage Nine-star Dou Sheng be considered a waste?

Gu Han took out a Recording Stone and secretly began recording.

But in his heart, he felt Zhu Kun might not even care.

After all, he was a daughter-obsessed father; he might even be proud of it.

"Child... I... your father... this Emperor... has finally seen you!"

Zhu Kun's massive body began to swim, his super-sized head moving upward.

In almost an instant, he crossed a distance of ten thousand zhang, making Gu Han's heart feel a bit numb.

Despite being so massive and looking cumbersome, his speed was incredibly fast.

"Why are you all weepy? Isn't it embarrassing?"

Zi Yan had originally intended to give Zhu Kun the cold shoulder. No matter what difficulties this old father had, it was a fact that she had suffered so much in her childhood. He bore some responsibility for that, and she couldn't just brush it off with a smile.

She, Zi Yan, was petty and held grudges; she wouldn't forgive Zhu Kun so easily.

But seeing Zhu Kun crying now, and feeling the joyful thumping of her Bloodline, she couldn't stay angry for a moment, leaving only a sense of disdain.

"I... I won't cry. I won't embarrass you." Zhu Kun immediately suppressed the urge to weep.

Gu Han: "..."

Who would believe this scene if it were told?

If it were written as a plot point in a novel, people would call it an exaggeration.

But a daughter-obsessed father truly defies logic, and Demonic Beasts value Bloodline even more, not to mention Zhu Kun's guilt toward Zi Yan.

*Creak!*

Suddenly, a sound like an old mechanical mechanism operating echoed in the Void Realm.

Following that, Gu Han and Zi Yan saw the pitch-black void distort. Countless chains that seemed to be formed from flames appeared; one end connected to the depths of the void, while the other bound Zhu Kun's massive body and began to tighten rapidly.

"Hiss!" A pained expression immediately appeared on Zhu Kun's face.

In some places where the spatial chains were bound, his steel-like hide actually split open instantly, and purple-gold blood flowed out.

"What's happening!?"

Zi Yan reached out to cover her chest. Perhaps because their Bloodlines were connected, she could feel that Zhu Kun was in great pain, and she instinctively became sorrowful.

"Gu Han, Gu Han, I feel so bad. Hurry and help him!" Zi Yan looked at Gu Han with an anxious expression.

"It's useless." A look of touched emotion flashed in Zhu Kun's eyes as he spoke. "This is a method left behind by that bastard Tuoshe Ancient Emperor. A Dou Di is truly a Dou Di."

"Over these past thousands of years, every time I healed my wounds and tried to escape, I never succeeded."

"On the rare occasions someone intruded here, I had to kill them, or I would also be tortured."

"Tuoshe Ancient Emperor just wanted to train me into a watchdog, but I will never yield."

"Child, your father hasn't seen you for so many years. Don't be in a hurry to leave."

"It's just a little pain. For you... hmm?"

Zhu Kun was prepared to endure the pain just to say a few more words to Zi Yan when he noticed the power compressing him suddenly stopped.

Following that, he heard Gu Han heave a long sigh of relief and say, "It's finally a success."

"Uncle Zhu Kun, sorry for letting you suffer for a bit."

"This Tuoshe Ancient Emperor Jade in my hand is incomplete. Although I started activating it after approaching the gate of the Ancient Emperor Cave, it only succeeded just now, barely influencing the power left by the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor."

After all, it was only one-eighth of the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor Jade; its influence on the Ancient Emperor's gate was limited.

But it was still one of the pieces of the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor Jade and had a connection with the gate of the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor's Cave Abode.

A complete ancient jade could open the gate; a one-eighth piece, if used with the right method, could slightly influence the Ancient Emperor gate.

He had the method and also possessed a Heavenly Flame like the Yin Yang Twin Flames, fulfilling the prerequisites to activate a piece of the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor Jade.

The ten-thousand-zhang gate was like a giant machine; even with a broken key, it took a lot of effort to activate it.

"Tuoshe Ancient Emperor Jade!"

Zhu Kun's gaze finally deigned to shift from Zi Yan to Gu Han's hand.

A seemingly ordinary piece of precious jade was emitting a special fluctuation.

That fluctuation was very familiar to Zhu Kun; it was exactly the same as the source of power in those flame chains on his body.

"This is only one-eighth," Gu Han explained to Zhu Kun. "After you disappeared, Senior, several conflicts broke out among the Dou Di clans for various reasons. By a thousand years ago, only the Eight Great Ancient Clans remained, each obtaining one-eighth of the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor Jade."

"To open the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor's Cave Abode, one needs to gather all the pieces of the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor Jade and use the power of Heavenly Flames to fuse them into a whole."

Hearing this, Zhu Kun...